Replacing the Hard Drive on an iMac

If you’ve been following me on Twitter (@rorypiper), you know I had some trouble with my iMac. The stock, 320GB hard drive burnt out. My computer had been getting slower and slower, and finally my iMac just froze. I booted from my install disc, and couldn’t even find the hard drive to format it.

I went and picked up a Seagate 1.5 TB, 7200.11 rpm hard drive, from my local computer parts store. The guy at the Mac repair shop said these have been running really smooth in Macs. Very affordable, too, at $169 CDN.

I’ve taken apart, and put back together lots of PC’s, in the past, so I felt I could handle this. I thought I would video the process, of my first attempt at tearing apart an iMac. I secured my iPhone 3GS to the ceiling above my “work station”, and recorded the entire process. In all, it took me about 45 minutes, start to finish, with all my fumbling and figuring things out. I edited it down to about 12 minutes. Enjoy (?).